Gömöry Judit – Veszprémi Nóra - Szücs György szerk.: A Művészház 1909–1914, Modern kiállítások Budapesten (A Magyar Nemzeti galéria kiadványai 2009/2)
FÜGGELÉK - András Zwickl: "The House of Modern Art"
intention, and founded the actual Artists' House, which, with its markedly outlined programme, sought to undertake tasks quite different from the two institutions dominating the art scene in Budapest. The Artists' House "strives to achieve an even distribution of forces that would have been impossible under the two sister societies, the Art Hall and the National Salon. In accordance with its traditions, the Art Hall can peacefully serve academic and classical ideals, the great style, historical painting; the Salon can be a fair for middling painting with lesser claims, while the Artists' House can be accessible to all new aspirations and artist generations." In setting up this new type of organization, Miklós Rózsa had an eye not only to the example of the older institutions and the societies that ran them, but also to the purely art-dealing Könyves Kálmán Salon. His personal experiences might also have assisted him, having started a similar enterprise of his own a year earlier. The new society was thus established by non-artists, and Miklós Rózsa won over cultural and political notabilities - as well as artists of course - to the Artists' House cause. The "officer corps" of the society was headed by Count Géza Teleki, whose generous contributions played a significant role in maintaining the Artists' House. Dr. Móric Domony, the managing director of the Hungarian River and Sea Navigation Co., was elected patron vice-chairman, while Béla Iványi Grünwald artist vicechairman. The board included the novelist Sándor Bródy, the painters Count István Zichy and Béla Horthy; the art director was Miklós Rózsa, and the managing director Jenő Mihályi Deák. The latter headed the Hungarian Art Co., with which the society entered into contract to obtain finances and exhibitions rooms. The society elected four "honorary members": Pál Szinyei Merse, Károly Ferenczy, József Rippl-Rónai, and Károly Kernstok. Their person and Lajos Ernst's being on the supervisory board attested a determination to link with the progressive periods of the MIÉNK and the National Salon. This emphasis on continuity obviously strengthened the legitimacy of the society. Members of the Art Council of the society consisted of the first exhibitors of the Artists' House, young painters at the beginning of their careers, some of whom had displayed their work at the first two MIÉNK shows. Throughout its existence, the Artists' House always had its own showroom, which was a hub of art life until its wind-up in 1914. In the no more than four and a half years of its functioning, it arranged nearly forty exhibitions. In accordance with its original concept, its programme initially focussed on group exhibitions for 8-11 artists. The purpose of these was to provide an opportunity to present smaller collections for young, lesser known artists, who had had little chance of exhibiting in the Art Hall and the National Salon; there were even notions "that those of the same artistic confession would form groups, and thus each trend would have its own show." Though this never materialized, several participants displayed their work at various, so-conceived exhibitions, and many young artists, such as József Egry and Béla Kádár, had their careers launched here. After the first three, this series of exhibitions lost its momentum, even broke off for two years, when the last, eighth group show came, it meant the end of the Artists' House in the spring of 1914. Another innovation of the Artists' House was the introduction of unjuried shows in Hungary. According to the statutes of the society: "the founding artist members entitle each artist to display a work at the annual unjuried exhibition modelled on the example of the Paris Salon des Independents [sic 1 ]" Following the first one in 1910, these were held annually, and were intended to give a chance of public appearance to those young progressive artists who were sifted out by the juries of the Art Hall and the National Salon. As a most radical form of protest against institutional conventions, the Anti-Salon was organised for those young painters who had been ruled out by the jury of the Art Hall Winter Exhibition and those that joined them out of solidarity. Among the former ones, József Nemes Lamperth and Armand Schönberger were to become well-known representatives of avant-garde tendencies. Apart from the unjuried exhibition and the Anti-Salon, another novelty of the 1910 autumn season was the arrangement of one-man shows, which introduced a new element in the programme of the Artists' House, and which would take over the lead from group exhibitions. The first retrospective of this type, that of Ernő Tibor, coincided with the first major crisis in the life of the Artists' House: as a result of sharpened internal conflicts, the society broke with the art-dealing enterprise of Jenő Mihályi Deák, which had provided the finances and showroom. Consequently, the Artists' House had to move out from the gallery in Váci utca, and put on its following exhibitions in the "summer rooms" of the Club of the City of Erzsébet (in Városligeti fasor). After this critical, transitory period in the winter of 1910-11, spring brought about a new chapter in the history of the Artists' House. Having sought an easily accessible venue for its exhibitions, the society managed to move back to the city centre (2 Kristóf tér), within arm's length from its former place, and organised its shows in this flat-turned gallery in the following year and a half. In respect of the exhibitions, the society recognised that, if not its objectives, its programme had to be changed in order to survive. Though they would go on organising unjuried group displays, they would focus on one-man 258 ANDRÁS Z V,' I K
